Four Girls at Chautauqua eBook

CHAPTER VIII.

“AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE BRIGHT.”

Meantime Flossy Shipley came to no place where her
heart could rest. She went through that first
day at Chautauqua in a sort of maze, hearing and yet
not hearing, and longing in her very soul for something
that she did not hear—­that is, she did
not hear it distinctly and fairly stated, so that
she could grasp it and act upon it; and yet it was
shadowed all around her, and hinted at in every word
that was uttered, so that it was impossible to forget
that there was a great something in which the most
of these people were eagerly interested, and which
was sealed to her.

She felt it dimly all the while that Dr. Eggleston
was speaking; she felt it sensibly when they sang;
she felt it in the chance words that caught her ear
on every side as the meeting closed—­bright,
fresh words of greeting, of gladness, of satisfaction,
but every one of them containing a ring that she could
hear but not copy. What did it mean? And,
above all, why did she care what it meant, when she
had been happy all her life before without knowing
or thinking anything about it?

As they went down the hill to dinner, she loitered
somewhat behind the others, thinking while they talked.
As the throng pressed down around them there came
one whose face she instantly recognized; it belonged
to the young man who had spoken to her on the boat
the evening before. The face recalled the earnest
words that he had spoken, and the tone of restful
satisfaction in which they were spoken. His face
wore the same look now—­interested, alert,
but at rest. She coveted rest. It
was clear that he also recognized her, and something
in her wistful eyes recalled the words she
had spoken.

“Have you found the Father’s presence
yet?” he asked, with a reverent tone to his
voice when he said “the Father,” and yet
with such evident trust and love that the tears started
to her eyes.

She answered quickly:

“No, I haven’t. I cannot feel that
he is my Father.”

They went down the steps just then, and the crowd
rushed in between them, so that neither knew what
had become of the other; only that chance meeting;
he might never see her again. Chautauqua was peculiarly
a place where people met for a moment, then lost each
other, perhaps for all the rest of the time.

“I may never see her again,” Evan Roberts
thought, “but I am glad that I said a word to
her. I hope in my soul that she will let Him find
her.”

If Flossy could have heard this unspoken sentence
she would have marveled. “Let Him find
her!” Why, she was dimly conscious that she was
seeking for Him, but no such thought had presented
itself as that God was really seeking after her.